Partner Article

Attracting finance for growth

A BUSINESS planning firm has launched a series of workshops to help the region’s start ups learn how to tie down much-needed investment.

Finance Tree, based in Newcastle, has designed free two day Investment Readiness Workshops that allow entrepreneurs to hear the tricks of the trade before facing funders.

The course has been designed by senior business people and professional investors and is said to cover all the essentials of financing a new company.

Peter Hiscocks, co-founder of Finance Tree, said: “It’s vital that businesses get investment and knowing the right places to get it is critical.

“Understanding how to raise money for your business is massively important as well as being very difficult. We run these programmes so people get it right.”

The first day of the course looks at how investment works and allows companies to prepare their business plan.

On the following day each business delivers a Dragon’s Den-style presentation in front of a panel of experienced business people.

“The panel gives businesses feedback and confidence for the future. It’s made up of people from the North East that are used to dealing with early stage ventures,” said Mr. Hiscocks.

“We recently had Sean Nicholson come along from Dickinson Dees and Steve Garbutt from Rivers Capital Partners. We’ll have new guests at our next workshop which begins 27th July.”

Ross Linnett, managing director of IT software company Resite Me, said he didn’t grasp just how difficult the funding process can be until he enrolled on one of the new programmes.

He said: “We’ve been developing software for a year and a half and now we want to accelerate our sales. We want to take our venture from a UK proposition to a global one.

“To do that we need finance and the coaching we’ve had will certainly help that. It’s taught me to really study that fine print. You may think you’re getting a good deal but there’s lots of hidden extras which could present a major problem to your business.”

The Investment Readiness workshops run as part of the Coaching for High Growth Programme managed by Entrust and will continue throughout the summer.

To book contact Emma Ferry on 0191 270 5131 or email admin@financetree.biz

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .